London: Vitamin A could hold the key to beating pancreatic cancer -a disease which has the lowest survival rate of all cancers and once diagnosed most people do not survive a year, says an Indian-origin researcher-led team.

Dr Hemant Kocher of Barts Cancer Institute in London and colleagues at Cambridge University and Hub-recht Institute in Holland claim to have found that raising levels of Vitamin A in healthy cells around the cancerous ones can help inhibit cancer growth.

"The findings should lead to better survival rates and different treatment methods for pancreatic cancer that annually kills almost 7,500 patients in the UK," website quoted Dr Kocher as saying.

Dr Kocher said the research was based on a theory originally proposed in 1889. Vitamin A, found in foods such as carrots and broccoli, is often deficient in many patients with the disease.